#EssentialWorkers #jobs #employment #employers #coronavirus #COVID19 #FlattenTheCurve
In the last year or so, some workers have been labeled “essential.”
For this argument, we will not include health care workers, who, indeed, are the ultimate essentials.
We’ll focus on those workers who produce and sell food, utilities. fuel and other things everyone needs to survive.
Because of what they do or provide, they MUST go to work, regardless of conditions, and risk their safety, and that of those with whom they must interact.
While deemed “essential,” generally, they don’t get paid a lot.
How can someone be so ”essential, ” and make so little?
There are arguments one can pursue here related to education, skills etc. In fact, some of those who work in health care who do jobs that don’t require higher education would undoubtedly put themselves in this category.
The fact remains: if we all can’t live without these folks’ work, why are they so underappreciated, at least financially?
Posing this question brings us to today’s scenario. The COVID-19 crisis, though still a crisis in many places, is showing a few signs of abating in many locales. Businesses are gradually getting back to their operations prior to the pandemic.
However, these businesses are finding out something. The workers they employed, and suddenly may have had to put out of work for the better part of a year, are not necessarily in a rush to come back.
Perhaps they have found other work in the meantime. Perhaps the pandemic has created complications in their lives that work interferes with.
Many of these workers may not necessarily be deemed “essential” in general, but they apparently are essential to their employers.
One argument for this phenomenon goes like this: people are making so much with unemployment benefits that they would lose money by going back to work.
That devolves to arguments about laziness etc. Very likely, however, unemployment benefits do not cover all the “essentials” these folks, and their families, need to live. If those benefits don’t cover all the essentials, and work pays even less, why go to work? the argument goes.
This is less likely a question of ambition and more likely a question of economics. If you are a business that depends on workers, and you are having trouble finding, or persuading, those workers to work for you, just pay them more. If you pay them properly, they will come. If you pay them properly, they will work.
The good news here is if you are a worker who doesn’t want to go back to your old job, or your old job is not worth going back to, there are ways you can not only meet your required expenses, but you can potentially prosper beyond what you had ever thought you could.
There are many programs out there that will allow you to do that. Yes, they do require work, so those without ambition need not explore them. And, they don’t require specific education, experience or background. But, they DO require that you look at something you may have never thought you would do.
To check out one of the best such programs, message me.
The argument for higher pay to attract workers is old. Businesses generally fear that paying workers more would mean higher prices for their products or services, thereby a reduction in demand. Most companies who make good products would find their customers would pay $1 more, or some nominal amount more, for their products or services, knowing they are paying their workers properly.
To be “essential” and poor makes no sense. Workers may also be thinking that I may be “essential” today, and gone – again – tomorrow. Putting financial pressure on people with few means makes little sense, in the long run. So, it’s up to employers, not government or anyone else, to solve this. They don’t do so at their peril.
Peter